remember, the economy was going off a cliff. a real cliff. and not a symbolic fiscal cliff. i mean, but it was a real economic cliff, over which we had no control at all. he took the reins and prevented another great depression. we had a very, very deep recession and we are still in the gravitational pull of that deep recession, but a lot of conservative republicans, many of whom had been elected in 2010, they looked at what president obama had done with regard to the stimulus package, and everything else, and they said, this is simply too much government. we hate government, we don't want government. and we were elected on a very ideological platform of shrinking the federal government. of kind of an anti-government obsession, of the sort that we haven't seen in this country in decades. >> all right. well, we're looking for the isaac newton to free us from that gravitational pull of these republican ideologues. robert reich, thank you so very much. and our sincere apologies to amanda turco of "the huffington post," who was unable to join us due to technical difficulties bey